Just months after acquiring a piece of educational technology designed to help students make smarter course selections, Kitchener, Ont.-based Desire2Learn Inc. is releasing a new version of its online software learning suite

Just months after acquiring a piece of educational technology designed to help students make smarter course selections, Kitchener, Ont.-based Desire2Learn Inc. is releasing a new version of its online software learning suite.

The update to the cloud learning platform uses elements of Degree Compass, a predictive analytics technology developed at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, as well as Desire2Learn’s own predictive software, which has been under development for the last six years.

The company calls its solution the Student Success System, and according to a release, offers “real-time insight and visualizations into learner’s capabilities, class dynamics and global learning trends, [enabling] institutions to synthesize outcomes, engagement and assessment data to anticipate issues and adapt feedback and guidance accordingly.”

“The idea is that predictive modelling has been missing in education, and what we’ve seen is huge challenges with student engagement and retention,” said Desire2Learn’s founder and chief executive officer John Baker.

He believes that by harnessing the same type of machine learning employed by online retailer Amazon or video streaming service Netflix, Desire2Learn can not only suggest courses to students, but provide early indicators of academic success – or failure – once a student has enrolled.

The technology developed by Degree Compass uses historical data — such as past grades, SAT scores and grade point averages — to help students select courses in which they’re likely to achieve an optimal outcome. Austin Peay State University ran over 700,000 course enrollments through Degree Compass over the past two years, and found its outcome predictions to be accurate over 90% of the time.

Mr. Baker called the software a “great complement” to Desire2Learn’s offering, and said the acquisition allowed his company to augment and accelerate the development its own Student Success System.

Desire2Learn tested its own Student Success System against five years of historical data, and found similar levels of accuracy in predicting academic performance – in some cases, effectiveness up to 98% – which should allow educators to understand within the first few weeks of class what grades will look like in, say, week 18.

“If I go back a few years, students were a big driver for the adoption of this technology in the first place,” he explained, as it allowed students to track their progress and performance in real-time, rather than be kept in the dark until it was too late to take action.

The company’s new software suite also officially introduces an iPad app called Binder, which had previously been in beta, and offers mobile access to course materials and resources. It integrates with both Desire2Learn’s own cloud storage solution, as well as third-party services Dropbox and Skydrive.

Another feature called myDesire2Learn was also announced, and is “a free cloud service that enables students to create an ePortfolio of their work and take it with them after graduation.”

The company has seen dramatic growth in recent months, according to Mr. Baker, expanding from just 300 employees at the beginning of last year to nearly 800 as of May. The majority of Desire2Learn’s staff consist of R&D and service and support, which make up 40% and 30% of the company, respectively. Sales now represents 22%. A new Toronto office is set to open with about 50 employees.